LSU Law Center professor Melissa Lonegrass and 2010 LSU Law graduate and current Southern University Law professor Christopher Odinet were recently named the 2016-18 Louisiana Bar Foundation Scholar-in-Residence. Lonegrass and Odinet will share the title in connection with their project to publish a treatise on the Louisiana public records doctrine.
“Professor Odinet and I are gratified by the Bar Foundation’s recognition of the value a comprehensive treatise on Louisiana’s law of registry. We believe this text will serve as an important resource for lawyers, judges, and law students,” Lonegrass said. “We are also delighted to have this opportunity to work together on a project that will enable us to make a substantial contribution to the rich body of academic scholarship that promotes our state’s civil law tradition.”
The Louisiana Bar Foundation created the Scholar-in-Residence program in 1991 in an effort to integrate an academic and scholarly dimension to the organization’s work. Every two years a committee of the foundation reviews applications and makes a recommendation to the board. The Scholar-in-Residence program is for a two-year term and includes a $7,500 grant to support the recipient’s scholarly project. The first Scholar-in-Residence recipient was LSU Law professor Paul R. Baier, and LSU Law professor Alain Levasseur is the outgoing Scholar-in-Residence for LBF.
“I am absolutely thrilled that Prof. Lonegrass and I were selected. We have often talked about how important it is for faculty at the Louisiana law schools to continue to promote our civil law tradition,” Odinet said. “We thank the Bar Foundation for giving us a vehicle in which to make a serious contribution to the bench and bar of Louisiana.”
The treatise that Odinet and Lonegrass will write over the course of the next two years will give in-depth and comprehensive treatment to the laws of registry (often called the “public records doctrine”), which serves as the backbone to land transactions throughout Louisiana. Prof. Odinet notes that they have already created a draft table of contents and a prospectus and that their next step is to secure a contract with a publisher.
Since joining the LSU Law Center in 2008, Lonegrass teaches Civil Law, Comparative Law and a wide range of areas of Louisiana law. After earning her law degree from Tulane University, she worked as an associate at the law firm of Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore L.L.C. in New Orleans, where she was engaged in general civil litigation with a concentration on products liability and pharmaceutical and medical device litigation.
Odinet is an assistant professor at the Southern University Law Center, and his research focuses on the role that debt and credit play in property-related transactions. He teaches courses in Commercial Paper, Property Law, Security Devices, and Sale & Lease.
